


Stage Hands

by Bibliotecaria_D



Series: Backstage [7]
Category: Transformers Generation One
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-28
Updated: 2012-01-28
Packaged: 2017-10-30 06:04:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/328560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bibliotecaria_D/pseuds/Bibliotecaria_D
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Combaticons weren't actors.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Brawl

**Title:** Backstage: Stage Hands  
 **Warnings:** Powerplay? Buncha helpless Decepticons? Reprogramming.  
 **Rating:** PG-13  
 **Continuity:** G1  
 **Characters:** Combaticons, Decepticons  
 **Disclaimer:** The theatre doesn’t own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.  
 **Motivation (Prompt):** _Scenario - seeking oblivion_

[* * * * *]

It felt like coming home.

Brawl knelt at Megatron’s feet, and he could not remember what else it might have felt like. There was rage, and there was violence, but in the end, there was always Megatron. Shout loud enough to shake screws loose from the walls and demolish buildings with a fight, but Megatron would still endure. The universe turned its predetermined course and deposited him back here, knee joints planted firmly before the Supreme Commander of the Decepticons.

 _Onslaught,_ he thought dimly, and there was a thick barrier blocking his thoughts. It felt like a wall pushing up against the outside edge of his right optic, applying pressure on his bare cerebral circuits. It should have hurt, but it didn’t. Brawl just felt somewhat uncomfortable, as if he were being compressed by an alternate mode too small for his primary build. 

His unit-commander should have been more important, and he thought he knew that. Maybe. But there was a nonexistent pressure bearing down his mind, and the thought wasn’t certain.

The Combaticons weren’t just a unit anymore. They had become one, the carefully reconstructed lasercore in Brawl’s chest configuring tick by tick to the other members of his new team. He could feel them as faint shadows at the edge of his core, the edges clearing into definite personalities and thoughts as their lasercores ticked toward total integration. Countdown to completion, and statistics were scrolling up the side of Browl’s HUD, updating him on positions and fuel levels and temperature gauges that weren’t his own. The stats ticked, and to their counting numbers, parts of him were rearranging.

He couldn’t control it, physically or mentally. In a peculiar way, he didn’t want stop it; he wanted it to hurry up and _finish_ , already. Combining into Bruticus had rushed the process, not completed it, and the incomplete sensation was maddening. They were -- Brawl was – weak until the combiner programming finished integration. 

The weakness wouldn’t stop there, however. Not really. Earth bodies and sadistic ingenuity had freed him from Shockwave’s prison and slaved his body and mind to four other Decepticons in the same grand stroke. The gestalt circuitry burned like minute fires following the wires under his armor; the Cybertronian technology melded but not merged with Earth materials, and he hated Starscream all over again. Five million years in prison, and the Air Commander of the fraggin’ Decepticons couldn’t even manage to make them real bodies for their return?

He liked the tank form. He had to hand that to Starscream: at least the fragger had picked an appropriate Earth alternate mode for him. 

And he knew how complicated lasercores were because he’d ripped out his fair share before and crushed them beyond saving. He didn’t understand the construction, but he’d known it would be fiendishly difficult to come back online the same way he’d gone off. Shockwave‘s prison sentence had been meant to do more than isolate Brawl in a box. The process of restoring him post-sentence would have likely resulted in a mech who bore only superficial resemblance to pre-imprisonment Brawl. It had something to do with the balance between personality core and lasercore, and getting that balance just right was really important. The sentence hadn’t really been about the time in the box so much as the knowledge that Brawl, the original Brawl, probably wouldn’t be the one to get out again. His body -- lasercore inside -- had been melted down after extraction and imprisonment of his mind. 

He didn’t understand much more than that. Brawl wasn’t known for his patience, and the others in his unit had been more concerned with their own lasercores at the time than explaining the threat to him. Shockwave hadn’t kept them waiting long. Prison, prison sentence -- boom: little storage box for half an eternity. No time for optimism or an escape plan. Just facts that Brawl didn’t really get.

Starscream had spent a painstaking amount of time accurately rebuilding their lasercores and installing them. Sure, he’d installed them in the junked-up Earth vehicles he’d found on that little island, but internal balance meant more than external armor. The external bits could be changed out or modified. Brawl knew that. He didn’t _feel_ any different than he remembered, so Starscream’s careful work had probably succeeded. Real Cybertronian bodies or not, at least they’d come back online as the same mechs. 

The charge coursing between lasercore and personality components had unwound the spark plasma Shockwave had imprisoned them in, and Brawl had come online feeling murderous. That, and feeling the constant, irritating shocks as brand new, horrifyingly new, unexpected and unasked for and _controlling_ gestalt circuitry linked up. The writhing ball of electricity-snapping plasma churning between lasercore and personality component now had an additional, outside source -- and drain. The combiner programming and components sent him into chaos and acted as stability, all at once. 

Brawl couldn’t get rid of it, and from what he _did_ understand, he couldn’t live without it, either. It supported and chained him. His understanding of that fact was becoming clearer as time passed. It wasn’t really his understanding, per se, so much as his unit-team’s, combiner-team’s understanding. That pissed him off, because it only ground jagged shards of undeniable truth into his very spark where his hands couldn’t tear it free.

Earth was stupid. The Earth Autobots were stupid. Acting stupid along with Megatron’s stupid plans was stupid. He’d been too full of hate for the stupid things to give a slag about gratefulness to Starscream or anyone. Yeah, sure, restored with extreme, patient care -- whatever. Megatron would have freed them eventually. Onslaught had, even before Bruticus, forged the Combaticons into an invaluable team. Then Onslaught’s takeover had failed and Shockwave had gotten his aft shot, but so what? Ol’ One-Optic would get over his illogical little snit, and they’d be back in action. 

Okay, so it had taken five million years. Big deal. They had time, and Onslaught was good at that long-term planning stuff. They didn’t need this gestalt slag, and they definitely didn’t need to cooperate with Megatron’s stupid plan. Even Onslaught had looked askance when Megatron’s Earth plan was explained, and Onslaught did tactics. Stupid Megatron. They had bodies, and they apparently had to have each other, so what -- or who -- else did they really need?

Then the Air Commander had held his bag of missing vital systems over their heads like a mech withholding treats his pets, and things had gone straight to the smelter. Starscream had explained Megatron’s plans, but the tricky Second had his own plans. Plans that he had been able to make the Combaticons go along with.

Brawl didn’t do plans. Plans were for team leaders and commanders who sent him out to smash things, because Brawl _did_ smashing things. _Onslaught,_ Brawl thought, dim and disliking it, and on the edge of his consciousness something despairing stirred. Too feebly to matter, but it was hard to remember why it should.

Starscream had failed, of course, because the Supreme Commander wasn’t that easy to defeat. The Combaticons had been exiled onto that asteroid, but they’d been whole. They’d been free. There were no limits to their freedom, no more boxes or threats to their lasercores, and they’d seized the opportunity. 

They’d returned to Cybertron, returned from exile, and vengeance had been waiting, hot and strong. Oh, the sweet, high pleasure that sang over the erratic gestalt link! It’d twined in joyful glee around their conjoined sparks as Shockwave disappeared into Cybertron’s sky. That’s what it had felt like when Starscream had been at their mercy on the asteroid, fear and inferno-deep rage glaring up at Brawl as he held the exiled Second in Command down and _pounded_. It had been physical, hold-in-his-hands revenge. First Starscream, next Shockwave, and then the stupid fraggers came back to Cybertron, and _both at once_ , like Primus personally delivered the quicksilver excitement that poured down Brawl’s back. 

It had been home, that feeling. Brawl’s old friends: delight in violence and never-ending anger. He hadn’t had to plan, because Onslaught, as always, had been there. Closer than before, maybe. More controlling and binding nearer with every shivering _click click_ of reconfiguring machinery inside him, but Bruticus wasn’t so bad. Not…like the statis box, where Brawl’s rage had just bounced off the walls inside his mind. Not like Shockwave’s prison, where he didn’t understand anything. Bruticus just slotted in, wrapping everything up into the link. Those shadowed forms he knew as teammates – gestaltmates – bound around his spark until they were one and the same; his violence permeated the plans and greed and interrogation and he didn’t know what all. 

Brawl didn’t have to understand. He didn’t even have to think. If he’d ever wanted to think about it, he’d have thought that he preferred it that way. 

An opaque thought, slower than a dead mech’s final drop of filthy engine oil, gurgled nauseatingly to the surface: _…Onslaught._

The barrier closed down, quickly-flitting numbers and words writing codes that meshed through his personality code, and Brawl shook his head. The wall pressing against his right optic had a twin now, slowly forcing its way against the left, but it wasn’t his vision that changed. There wasn’t actual physical pressure, but that was the only thing Brawl knew to compare it to. Something was shifting, narrowing down around him, and he didn’t know what. It bothered him. Not much, less and less every passing moment, but it did. 

On the other side of the block, a shadow shape slumped in defeat, and Brawl knelt at Megatron’s feet. There was rage, and there was violence, and there was always, always Megatron -- and Brawl found his oblivion therein.

It felt like home. 

He could not remember what else it might have felt like.


	2. Stage Hands: Vortex

**Motivation (Prompt):** _Too much talking_

[* * * * *]

Scrapper talked too much. 

At that moment, Vortex couldn’t have been more grateful for that fact. Let the mech talk. Talk some more, Scrapper. About what? Who the frag cared. So long as Vortex could see the Constructicon speaking with Shockwave, it meant that he was still present. He still had a body. He had no control of that body, but it was there. Teasing at the edge of his mind, all the switches tripped to _off_ and out of his hands, but it was there. 

He’d spent 5 million years without that faint echo at the very border of his mind indicating he had a head. Five million years trapped in a box had made Vortex _that aware_ of a tiny sensation like that. Time had ingrained the pathetic feel of being just a personality component, his mental core trapped inside the plasma of his very spark and filed neatly into a literal prison block. 

Aware? Hyper-aware. He could map out the wavering limits where thought brushed processor, linked him to a body he couldn’t actually touch, and he held onto that not-sensation with the desperation of 5 million years _without_. The continuous pulse of electricity throbbing around his mind was another of those not-sensations he greedily absorbed; he scrambled to fully map basic life functions and vital system logs. He needed to remember and never let it go. Circuitry and wires, programming and codes, lasercore and spark and armor: they were the tiny, forgettable, unimportant details that were a whole world.

These things could be taken away. Were taken away. Had been taken away once, 5 million years ago, and Vortex had only his mind to twitch at the horror of having it taken away again. His body wasn’t gone yet, but it hung around him like a cloudy presence. It wasn’t _his_. The only thing left to him was the memory of his senses, and it wasn’t enough.

Vortex knew what it took to make someone break. Bodies faltered if mind tricks didn’t unfold prisoners first. Vortex used himself as another interrogation tool. He could fly until even he didn’t know which way was up, if gravity still applied, when the crash would come, and he _loved it_. Had to have it, truth be told, and to him it inevitably would be. He’d been the best in his chosen field, and interrogation had been his addiction as much as career.

The relentless assault of chaos could only be ridden by a disturbed mind, and Vortex had a VIP pass on that ride. His prisoners? Not so much. Take a grounder for a wild ride up in a cyclone, and gyros would destabilize. The turbulent air created a world of false input that forced systems out of sync with a mind that knew differently, and Vortex could see it happen. He could cause it, took great pleasure in causing it, and then came the delicious moment when he dove through the whirlwind and drove questions like spikes into that gap. Interrogations were recipes: a little pain here, a pinch of confusion there. Add a peppering of logic where it would do the most harm, and sometimes shake in some pleasure, involuntary and humiliating. Let it stew in the brig, or maybe call in some bruisers to punch out the raw ingredients into a more malleable shape. He could lever answers out of the toughest Autobot like a versatile cook challenged to work with any ingredient thrown at him.

Combat had a more brutal, immediate edge, but Vortex enjoyed it, too. Flight and firepower were more tools, and prisoners were the reward for tools used well. Afterward, because he was very good, he’d get to interrogate the prisoners. Vortex did, after all, know the trade inside and out. 

Even Shockwave had noted that about him 5 million years ago, in the last few moments before audio feed had cut off. Without that, the words had been flashing light as Shockwave’s optic had reacted to unheard syllables. The patterns could be read, yes, but only if the one-opticked loyalist had stayed within sight. Sight had quickly followed audio, however, as the connections between personality core and body were severed.

And then Vortex had been left with nothing. He’d spent 5 million years wondering what exactly Shockwave had said after the cut off. He’d wondered with decreasing hope and increasing insanity. Perhaps it had been a second of regret for losing Vortex’s skill, and in that direction lay hope that egged insanity on. If Shockwave had regretted, he might remember, and Vortex might be reactivated. Hope had bent Vortex’s thoughts at right angles and sharpened them, making blades of thought because it was his only remaining tool. The solitary victim left for his interest and entertainment and amusement was the mind trapped in that prison box. He, himself, was all he’d had left for an eternity of turning in on himself in the search for anything outside the box. 

Time could not be measured within that box, and side-by-side with hope had come anguish. It’d tortured him in that timeless wait. Hope caused insanity, and insanity eventually broke a mech. Vortex knew this, because he was an expert at driving mechs beyond their tolerances. Facing the process himself had given him no comfort because the other end of the spectrum offered no sanctuary. It had been either hope or despair in that box, and part of Vortex rebelled against giving up that way. Although he knew better. He’d known prisoners only had value if they were useful, and Shockwave’s sentence made it clear that he felt the Combaticons’ usefulness to be at an end.

 _Onslaught._ Reflexive and below the level of actual thought, and for an agonizing fragment of a micro-second, Vortex thought he felt something. He didn’t know what. It didn’t matter. He clutched at the sensation with mental hands that didn’t grip, and it slipped away.

Vortex knew what it took to make prisoners break, and he’d broken fellow Decepticons for fun before. He drank in sight because he would not break like this. He silently, motionlessly urged Scrapper to keep talking because it gave him just a little more time to gather sensation. He memorized the limitation of his mind, studying where mind lost control of body, because he would remember and retain and _would not break_. It didn’t matter what they did to him. He refused to break. 

Shockwave and that blasted, talkative Constructicon could take away his body, melt down his lasercore, and fold his spark energy back around his personality components. They could destroy him outright or stick him in a tiny prison to rot. They could poke with delicate little tools and torments at his vulnerable mind like sadistic scientists chasing a chattering experiment ‘round and ‘round a cage. 

…that sounded sort of fun, really.

Regardless, Vortex wouldn’t break. Taking his body away again only deprived them of an important tool in an interrogator’s repertoire, even if they were too amateurish to realize it now. He knew they weren’t trying to question him -- he had no information they wanted -- but it gave him concrete purpose. Resisting his own unstable mind would be the only hobby to occupy his attention forevermore, once Scrapper stopped his infernal yapping and let Shockwave get back to the imprisonment. 

Vortex lay suspended in lockdown, grasping at even the dead weight of a body, and buried under his last-minute, desperate scramble for sensation whimpered a sensualist gelded. He could feel _nothing_ , and the circuitry of his open head crackle-popped in the silent, crazed, sobbing laughter of the already broken.


	3. Stage Hands: Blast Off

**Motivation (Prompt):** _"This conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye." - HAL 9000_

[* * * * *]

How disgusting, that ‘normal’ for the Combaticons involved guarding a…the…

…well, as usual, Blast Off didn’t really know _what_ it was. Vortex and Swindle were debating names for it, and _Stunticon Redux_ had been the most flattering choice so far. Hook had looked up from its insides long enough to pitch a piece of pipe in their general direction when that one had been suggested. The Constructicons were apparently still a bit sore about creating the car wreck in progress otherwise known as the Stunticons. That meant dubbing the…thing… _Stunticon Redux_ had become an instant favorite among the Decepticons idling nearby. 

Swindle had set up a poll on the short-range communication frequency and began taking votes. Bonecrusher had threatened bodily harm. Swindle switched to anonymous voting.

‘Normal’ on Earth was a somewhat relative term. 

On Earth, Skywarp hovered in the air above the ocean and did a ridiculous human dance every time he signaled the docking tower to rise. It had some kind of ritual significance, or so he declared when asked. Why a highly ranked weapon of mass destruction waggling his aft in imitation of some kind of feathered avian was significant escaped Blast Off. 

On Earth, Dirge, Ramjet, Mixmaster, and Blitzwing could -- and did -- sing the national anthem of every human country on the blasted planet, and they did it intentionally out of harmony and in the wrong languages. The quartet of audio torture openly hired themselves out to whomever felt the need to get Soundwave back for something. The more they were paid, the higher Dirge’s fake falsetto squeaked. 

On Earth, Megatron claimed to have no idea how the stolen billboards kept getting hung up on the _Victory_ ’s command bridge like bizarre art on the walls. Starscream had confided to the other Decepticons that the Supreme Commander had developed a horrid fetish for human advertisements. He’d immediately pointed to this as yet more proof of Megatron’s unworthiness and another reason he, Starscream, should lead the Decepticons, and blah blah blah.

Starscream’s familiar treachery had been cut short that time, Blast Off recalled. Rumble and Frenzy had run by the common room carrying a giant kayak and yelling something about white water. Later that week, Soundwave had sent Blast Off to pry the errant Cassetticons out of a deep part of the river in the Grand Canyon. They’d been utterly unrepentant. They’d held a slideshow in the common room detailing their adventure. It seemed, for reasons they couldn’t adequately explain, to be mostly upside-down. They decided it wasn’t extreme enough and had been negotiating with Thundercracker about towlines and with the Constructicons about something called ‘water-skis’ the last Blast Off heard. 

And this was ‘normal’ on Earth. The _Stunticons_ were ‘normal’ on Earth.

It amazed him every day that the Autobots fell for it.

The Decepticons, mercenaries and patriots and cold-sparked slaggers to their cores, spent their days on Earth mocking Starscream to his face and betraying Megatron every other day. They disobeyed orders, broke ranks during battle, and lost to the humans. And the Autobots _fell for it._

How disgusting. The Autobots were Earth-mad in the worst way, something Blast Off hadn’t fully understood in the short time between reactivation from imprisonment and banishment to the asteroid. If he’d understood, would he have reacted differently? Would he have refused to follow Starscream’s real plan under the silly front put on for the watching Autobots? Would the Combaticons have stood at Megatron’s side while the Air Commander was exiled alone? 

Useless questions, questions that wouldn’t change what had actually happened, but it was either think about that or stare at his fellow Decepticons’ buffoonery. He wasn’t around the other, more important players in Megatron’s master plan often enough to have gotten used to their personal takes on the Earth act. He had to get used to seeing Decepticons acting like idiots every time. The clash between normal and ‘normal’ on Earth was disorienting. 

That was also something that he had to wonder about. Would that be different? If they hadn’t rebelled, hadn’t used Bruticus to take over Cybertron and try to destroy Megatron, would things have changed? Maybe it would have. 

Maybe the Combaticons wouldn’t always be banished to the fringes of the Decepticon crew. Maybe they wouldn’t obediently play the bit parts grudgingly handed them. They might still be stuck guarding the _Stunticon Redux_ \-- Constructicon wrath nonwithstanding -- but after the upcoming sham of a battle, would the Combaticons follow the other Decepticons back to the underwater base? When Prime’s pack of fools came to blow the stupid thing up, would Swindle film the Autobots and sell it to Laserbeak for the technimal Cassetticon’s ongoing video show of stupid stunts? Would Vortex collect his winnings from the One-Liner Bingo game and nail his card on the Wall of Blame in the common room? Would Brawl and Blitzwing get into fistfights and yelling matches, emerging dented and waving a completed rulebook for the brute squad Cybertronian equivalent of American football? Would Onslaught get Humiliation Pay for pretending to be anything but the brilliant tactician he was?

Would the Combaticons in general get _paid?_ It was a question Swindle frequently asked. 

Blast Off didn’t know how his life might have been different. The gestalt circuitry would still be there; the combiner team would entwine through his mind, body, and spark like an unwanted presence overlapping him, or a constant, intimate contact. But when he returned from orbit after a mission or patrol, would he have his own, personal quirk to fool the Autobots with? Something to elaborate on himself instead of awkwardly performing a handful of lines assigned to him every time? 

Every time he returned from guarding idiotic machines the Autobots spent far too much time and thought destroying, would he have to face his probation officer and accept the chain of a cerebro-shell placed on him every day like a leash? The original agreement between Bombshell, Starscream, and Shockwave had hammered out a definite rehabilitation period for the Combaticons. The three officers had apparently agreed that 5 million years in prison statis had punished them sufficiently for their crimes. It would have been probation, but comparatively light and short. 

Instead, combiner team had come online after their failed takeover attempt with loyalty programming so deeply integrated into their gestalt codes that it took a lot of internal reflection for Blast Off to even notice them. Sometimes, he was still startled to find new aspects of behavioral deviations and thought limitations now forced on him. 

Almost worse than the programming, the Combaticons were separated out from the other Earth Elite and sent to another base entirely. They were coldly cut off from their own kind. It made the situation _very_ clear to them: they were not Elite, and they were not actual warriors. They were prisoners, and Megatron was still deciding what to do with them after their usefulness in the Earth act expired. They were sent away to a base, into what looked like independence to the Autobots and was essentially a prison complex, and there they rotted. 

The three Insecticons put in periodic appearances in Bali and Indonesia to distract the Autobots, but they’d come to Earth to stand guard over the prisoners. Shrapnel, Bombshell, and Kickback caged the Combaticons in that prison-base more effectively than half a dozen Decepticons stood guard on the _Stunticon Redux_. 

When the Combaticons weren’t visible about the base or among the other Decepticons on duty, they were clapped in chains. Inside the base buildings, safe from Autobot spies, their real duties awaited. Equipment from the Decepticon underwater base sat inside, ready for repairs and cleaning and whatever other scutwork Soundwave sent up from the ocean floor. Shrapnel assigned prison duties during the Combaticons’ supposed ‘off duty’ times with hard efficiency, sending the Combaticons to their knees scrubbing barnacled, greasy machinery, or keeping them busy doing basic maintenance work. The Insecticon probationary officer accepted no excuses and allowing no slacking, and despite his size compared to them, the combiner team feared him. 

A few necessary times having their bodies under Shrapnel’s control had taught them all the value of just doing what they were told. Disobedience brought hours trapped inside their own bodies, 40,000 volts of electricity as reminders of what exactly they were, or -- worse yet -- being written up on report. On those thankfully rare occasions, Kickback would take one or another of them aside and, well, Blast Off didn’t like to think about those times. Kickback was very good at what he did. With the Combaticons prostrate under loyalty programming, chains, and fear of complete mindwipes, he did what he did best and let them go crawling back to the team broken a little more to heel every time. 

Bombshell just seemed to specialize in making Blast Off’s life a living Pit. The shuttle speculated so often on what life _would have been_ because life _as it was_ sucked like a black hole. 

Speaking of which, best to get this over with.

He hailed his probationary office through the secure channel and tried not to feel the humiliation burn. *“Sir?”*

_*“What.”*_

*“My shift ends at sundown, sir. Since we will not be returning to the base, I ask leave to -- “*

 _*“No, no.”*_ Bombshell’s voice shaded up from chilly acknowledgment into amusement at the request. 

Blast Off’s bitter embarrassment swelled with it. On the other side of the build site, Onslaught and Vortex looked up from their own quiet conversation as Blast Off’s degradation flooded the gestalt link. He squelched it off, of course, but this wasn’t an emotion he could consciously control. The other Combaticons found vastly more fascinating things to suddenly ask the Constructicons about, loudly and at length. 

Blast Off loathed himself for the slight glimmer of gratitude for that. They’d all been thrown down and disgraced by their imprisonment at one point or another, but he could never predict how Swindle or Vortex would react on any given day to his shame. Brawl thought it entertaining, but the kind of simple glee Brawl radiated could be dealt with. Vortex’s twisted interest or Swindle’s calculating gaze stripped his gears down to the bare metal. Kickback’s sinister understanding of what made Blast Off tic gave Bombshell endless ammunition, and the Insecticon took sick delight in digging that knowledge in and _wrenching._

The sun inevitably would set. When it did, Bombshell’s cerebro-shell would come creeping through the shadows, undetectable to Autobot spies. Blast Off wouldn’t even feel it jack in, infiltrating his circuitry, but there would abruptly be certain inhibitors like straight-line directives through his mind. They wouldn’t allow him to move off the course set for him. There would be no chains around his limbs, but freedom was a mere dream.

For the purpose of the mission, the cerebro-shell had been removed. Off duty, however, Blast Off would be returned to the mental cage carefully set up for his personal imprisonment.

*“Sir,”* he started, unable not to try, *“Astrotrain goes on duty for the night shift. He’s technically the superior officer on site, and it will look strange if I do not respond to him. If nothing else,”* he continued, knowing he wasn’t persuading his probation officer but, Primus help him, he couldn’t seem to stop, *“he is another shuttle. We speak while on missions. If I can only have leave for a single hour, I will -- “* 

_*"This conversation can serve no purpose anymore, anymore. Goodbye."*_

Mortification dripped down his chest and pooled heavy as iridium over his lasercore. Conversation over; don’t call back, or else. All the Combaticons knew that tone. 

Which meant that, in less than an hour, Blast Off would feel his own mind slip away. All the downloaded information the Combaticons needed to function on Earth came from Soundwave, and downloaded information was not the same as _learnt_ information. Blast Off had always known that, but he’d never had the difference slap him in the face before waking up on Earth. Learnt information could only be erased by a mindwipe. Downloaded information could be taken away with an ease that left him appalling ignorant. 

The Decepticons on Earth, by orders, spoke and communicated only in Earth languages. When the cerebro-shell came, it’d cut off access to downloaded files. Without the downloads, Blast Off knew a smattering of English. Everything, _everything_ else he needed to know in order to interact with the mechs around him would shut off, and Megatron’s orders explicitly forbade him from possibly giving away the game to the Autobots by trying other means of communication. 

In less than an hour, Blast Off would be functionally illiterate and linguistically incapable.

When the cerebro-shell came, Blast Off would wither a bit inside under the other Decepticons’ knowing optics. He’d keep his visor studiously down as he curled up around his cringing spark and sat as far away from the others as he could. If approached, he’d respond as briefly and reluctantly as possible. It might look like arrogance and aloofness to the spying Autobots, but he was simply trying to conceal how bad his spoken English remained and how very little of other languages he even understood. Bombshell had -- mercifully or sadistically? -- provided him with a datapad crammed with language data. Blast Off spent his precious, rare free time at the base and off duty and pretty much any time missions didn’t allow for this kind of handicap learning from it. He had to. 

So he’d sit alone, learning the grubby, noisy, awful details of Earth’s native tongues. He’d painfully trace out the letters and characters with tiny motions of his fingers on the datapad, and under his breath he’d sound out the words. The other Decepticons barely even laughed at him for it anymore. 

On Earth, this was ‘normal.’

How disgusting.


	4. Stage Hands: Onslaught

**Motivation (Prompt):** _"My relationship to you can only be defined as masochistic."_

[* * * * *]

Punishment detail for regular Decepticon warriors was disgraceful, and often painful. For a Decepticon prisoner, that was everyday life. So when Shrapnel put a Combaticon on report, that Combaticon knew to feel regret long before Kickback even started. Because Kickback made prisoner punishment details…special. 

Onslaught already regretted this. But groveling and scraping under Kickback’s personalized torment was a symptom of the disease, and the Combaticons would never be cured of it unless Onslaught did something about the situation. Involuntary loyalty to Megatron had been enough of a punishment for their rebellion, he felt. It took away any option of repeating their defiance. 

Oh no, but that couldn’t be enough. The Combaticons had to be an example. Shockwave was reactivating other prisoners back on Cybertron, and the Combaticons weren’t enough of an example on their knees before Megatron. They’d nearly destroyed the Supreme Commander. They’d nearly given away the vast plot deceiving the Autobots, and wasted the time and energy spent on Earth to allow other conquests to continue. Megatron wanted them to _pay_ for what they’d done. 

When summoned, the Combaticons crawled into the Decepticon leader’s presence in gratitude for being spared. When dismissed, they thanked him for his mercy in not mindwiping them. Their voices were flat and forced, but if he could, Onslaught would add more words. After months of servitude, he was ready to beg.

He’d thought it temporary when they’d first been returned to Earth by Shockwave. Probation had been something to endure, because it was due punishment before release. The Elite Decepticons regarded them as little more than trash, footsoldiers of the lowest rank, but they had value. The Combaticons were a combiner team now. Bruticus magnified already their impressive individual abilities into an awesome battlefield force. Onslaught had been certain their worth would be recognized and utilized properly. There was so _much_ the Combaticons could do for the Decepticons!

Onslaught’s strategic mind had recognized Megatron’s master plan when given time, and he could contribute to the warlord’s unfolding conquests offworld. Vortex topped the list of Decepticon interrogators, a valuable skill no matter the planet. Blast Off would be a welcome addition to any strike team for planetary scouting or precision orbital strikes. Brawl’s brute force seemed simple at first, but his firepower was top of the line and searingly powerful with the aid of his gestalt linkups, now. Swindle already was borrowed by the Constructicons for special requisitions, and the main Decepticon divisions on Cybertron would have probably fought over who got the opportunistic trader…if he wasn’t on probation. 

If they weren’t _all_ on probation. Permanently. Until Megatron finally finished on Earth and sent them back to scrub floors in Shockwave’s tower, or mindwiped them, or sent them to the front lines to die as shock troops, of no more worth than the lowest-ranked soldier. That was bad. What was worse was that they couldn’t do anything _about_ it. 

Maybe Autobot prisoners got time off for good behavior, but the Combaticons slaved away at their assigned duties for the privilege of repairs by a competent repairmech after battles. Sometimes the Constructicons deigned to go against Megatron’s explicit disapproval and implicit orders; they’d repair the Combaticons if the Insecticons thought their behavior adequate, or if Swindle acquired something of particular interest to the Engineering division. However, the Constructicons made it excruciatingly clear what they thought of repairing _prison scum_ while they did so. Such repairs always were accompanied by Scrapper doing a mandatory check of the loyalty programming. He made them recite rules and regulations and propaganda until Brawl was confused by what was coming out of his own mind and Blast Off’s vocalizer scraped hoarse with unaccustomed speech. 

Swindle fought pitched battles on the intergalactic market to earn them that particularly mortifying privilege, but most of the time, the Combaticons limped back to base and did their best to repair each other. They submitted to the chains around their limbs and orders given by Insecticons half as small as them because Decepticons didn’t have choices like _’Behave or we’ll take your extra rations away.’_ They got choices like _’Do what you’re told when you’re told how you’re told…or else.’_

They were an example to the entire Decepticon faction, and they weren’t going to end well. There would be no end to the probationary period, Onslaught had realized. They would be pitilessly degraded and pushed aside until they were known only as the combiner team more useful as maintenance mechs than as warriors. They’d rust under the Insecticon’s harsh routine in that wasteland prison-base. If they were very lucky, Megatron would _let_ them return to Cybertron as maintenance mechs.

Onslaught had a tactician’s mind. One thing to be said for probation: it gave that mind time to think. He’d pored over strategies as he mindlessly cleaned walls and polished equipment. He’d searched for a way out, exchanging snatches of thought with the other Combaticons in furtive planning sessions while they shamed themselves in front of the Autobots or passed in the base corridors. The Combaticons would not be…allowed…to overthrow Megatron. They’d viciously fight against anyone else who tried, in fact. The other Decepticons interacted with them only on missions, and strictly according to what Megatron’s plan laid out. No real communication happened during those times; they were always _on stage_ for Autobot spies. 

The Autobots thought the other Decepticons despised the Combaticons. They weren’t far off the mark on that. Prisoners, especially prisoners so thoroughly subjugated, were beneath notice to warriors. The Elite of the Decepticons in particular. The Combaticons had no allies and absolutely no hope for a future there.

Which left Onslaught dredging the barrel of wishful thinking. He came up with a wisp of possibility. The others were as desperate as he and asked few questions. The less they knew, the more ignorance they could claim when it came down to explaining why exactly they were distracting their probation officers. As it was, Onslaught knew he was going to get it the moment the Insecticons realized their fifth prisoner had slipped his leash. The timetables Shrapnel laid down were exact for a reason, and Onslaught would be overdue for return from the _Victory_ in approximately half an hour. After that, every minute overdue lengthened punishment detail exponentially. 

He paid the bribe to Thundercracker without protest, knowing the blue Seeker could refuse or even report him for this. Explaining why he was here right here, right now, and where he’d gotten even the couple cubes of energon to pay with would be an exercise in public humiliation. Vortex and Brawl had skimped their already-strict rations for weeks to pay for this, but it would all be worth it if this worked. 

Thundercracker eyed askance the poor grade of energon but shrugged acceptance. Energon was energon; holding this over Onslaught’s head was the real bribe. It ensured Bruticus would pay extra attention to any Autobots shooting up Thundercracker’s tailfins the next time the gestalt went into battle. The blue Seeker leaned against the wall, optics dimming. Encrypted communications went back and forth, and Onslaught grew more and more tense. 

Swindle had skimmed and simpered for weeks to buy little trinkets and gifts, and he’d paid the Cassetticons to deliver them to the Air Commander’s office. That, too, was being held over the Combaticons as a whole. The Air Commander automatically turned down any request for audience from the Combaticons, and he didn’t even acknowledge communication attempts. Hence, buttering him up with presents, and then bribing his trinemate to ask _for_ them. 

Tactics. The tactics of weak, disgraced prisoners, but tactics nonetheless. 

Onslaught’s shattered sense of self-worth winced and tried to pull together the longer this drew out. Minutes ticked off, ever closer to the time limit looming over him, and he _knew_ what Kickback would do to him. Every second added that much more time onto the flight back, and the total time would be multiplied by whatever aggravation Shrapnel felt at being tricked by the other four Combaticons. 

It was going to be very, very bad. Kickback could turn one duty shift into a time measurement of complete condemnation. Two reduced Swindle into offering anything, anything at all, so long as it appeased the Insecticon. Three sent Vortex into laughter fits that poorly covered his screaming, and Blast Off shook silently through missions for days afterward. No one but Onslaught had earned four shifts punishment detail, and he’d staunchly refused to reveal details even after waking nightmares kept his entire team from recharge because of the gestalt link. 

Onslaught regretted even starting this train of thought. The Insecticon probation officer would make him regret living by the time he was through. Perhaps it would be better to cut his losses, creep back to the Combaticon base, and claim weather damage delayed him. It wouldn’t spare him punishment, but Kickback might show a bit of leniency. Maybe. If Onslaught groveled a little, which was a bitter thought in and of itself.

Thundercracker’s optics suddenly lit a bright red, and Onslaught snapped out of his black thoughts. “He’ll see you,” the jet sneered, “although only he knows why. **Remember** this, Combaticon!” Onslaught bent his head, silently accepting the debt heaped on his team’s backs. Thundercracker eyed him a moment more, then turned on a thruster and walked off down the corridor. A mutter that might have been _”Prison dregs”_ drifted back through his wake, but Onslaught was used to the insults. 

It was really only insulting if it weren’t true, after all. 

He gathered his courage, slamming mental doors on all the reasons why this was such a bad idea, and faced the door. He pinged _*”Sir?”*_ at the same time he tapped the access panel. Politeness never hurt, and it was a cheap submission he felt no shame in proffering. Starscream outranked him, if nothing else. 

The door opened in answer, and Onslaught paused a moment on the threshold. Open doors weren’t necessarily an invitation to enter. The Air Commander could, in all probability, simply want to deliver a dismissal order to his face before closing the door again. “Sir?” he asked again.

“Come in.”

He stepped inside, feeling a traitorous surge of gratitude flare near his core. It ran, sick and dizzy, up against the last seconds of the time limit running out. Hope and dread collided in his chest, but it was too late to go back. He braced to attention. “Sir.” 

Starscream didn’t immediately look up. He was working on something on the inbuilt terminal at the desk, peering intently if not with much interest at the screen. Onslaught could read mechs, and the trepidation dragging on his spark slicked an extra dollop of icy anxiety down internal systems. This wasn’t the elaborate façade of a Decepticon playing power games. Starscream genuinely cared more about what he was working on than the Combaticon waiting for his attention. Power games weren’t much fun unless the other player had some power, and Onslaught had none. 

The time kept going, now running _up_ , and what could he do about it? What could this jet do about it?

Why, of all Decepticons, Starscream?

He was undeniably a good-looking mech, if looks meant much in the middle of civil war. The red and blue was flashy, and the white added a nice contrast. He wouldn’t be Onslaught’s first choice for berth play, but he’d certainly look twice at the Seeker’s aft. An excellent flyer, and quick, but the flight ranks had plenty of fast flyers. He had the rank to hold Megatron’s audio, but so did Skywarp and Thundercracker and half the Elite Decepticons on Earth. Proximity alone ensured that, which prompted the vicious infighting back on Cybertron to fill any slots that opened on the Earth team. He wasn’t even in the Onslaught’s direct chain of command during fights, although of course he’d obey any orders given. If Onslaught had wanted that bit of connection with the jet, he’d have sent Blast Off or Vortex in his place. 

No, Starscream had looks, and he had ability, and he had the power, but he had far more than that. He was the Air Commander. He held the air ranks in a manner no other flyer could possibly hope to mimic. He had some connection that Megatron valued above all others with similar looks and ability and powerbases. 

Most important to Onslaught, however, was the peculiar bond he held to the Combaticons. It was a tenuous relationship, absurd at the first glance, and Onslaught would have laughed at the suggestion if he weren’t so desperate. It defied easy definition or description beyond the obvious action: he’d _rebuilt_ them.

When the jet finally closed the terminal screen and looked up at him, Onslaught didn’t even know how to put it into words. “Yes?” Starscream asked, evidently deciding the opening pause to be another form of respectful deference.

“Sir, I…” Onslaught fumbled for words. “The Combaticons…”

The Air Commander leaned back in his seat, not relaxed but obviously at ease. “Yes,” he drew out, staring the bulkier mech down. “The Combaticons. I assume there’s a reason for all of this.” He waved a hand casually, a gesture that could have meant Onslaught’s presence but served to draw attention to the small heap of things discarded in the far corner. Onslaught flicked a look at the expensive trinkets -- everything Swindle had labored to gift the picky Seeker, untouched and thrown aside -- and looked back to Starscream. The other Decepticon was regarding him with the steady optics of someone growing bored. “Do explain, Combaticon.”

Surely Starscream knew his name? ’Combaticon’ had become synonymous with ‘prisoner’, however, so Onslaught could be fairly certain the omission was deliberate. This was not going well, and time kept rushing by.

Onslaught straightened his shoulders and dove in with no pretense of pride. “Sir, we need your help. I’m here to ask you to intervene with Lord Megatron on our behalf.” The Air Commander was terrifyingly smart. Spelling out why they needed help would be offensive. Explaining what they could bring to the Decepticon cause would only insult his intelligence. Onslaught didn’t know if that would be more or less offensive than flat-out asking an officer to help them when said officer knew every reason why _not_ to help. “We would be exceedingly grateful, sir, for even the smallest favor. All we need is an opportunity!” He couldn’t tell what the jet was thinking behind those bored optics.

He strained to keep his voice level, to stay at attention. He had very little dignity left, but he would salvage what he could. “An opening, sir. A chance. We’re not asking you to directly ask for our pardon,” although if that happened, Onslaught would dedicate an entire day to singing the jet’s praises, “but you could speak with him. You could…say something to Lord Megatron.”

Starscream interrupted. “Say what, exactly?”

Onslaught brought his hands forward, spreading them expressively. The jet had a cleverness with Megatron that no one else had ever been able to duplicate without a fusion blast through the lasercore. “Whatever you think best, sir. Anything would be welcome. Lord Megatron,” he hesitated, because it was true for the jet and increasingly unlikely to ever be true for any of the Combaticons, “listens to you.” 

The time continued counting up. Kickback was going to _ream_ him, but Onslaught didn’t dare prod the jet. Starscream leaned forward slowly, resting his chin on one fist as he studied the Combaticon leader. The silence wasn’t outright rejection. He held onto that like it could be comfort. That dripped away the longer the silence lasted.

Finally, _finally_ , the Air Commander dipped his chin against his fist. It was tiny. It could signify anything. Onslaught’s spark quivered in a whiplash of hope. 

“He might,” Starscream admitted, and his optics were no longer bored. They held a dangerous, lazy kind of interest. The kind of interest that could help or hinder, but at least it was interest! “Or he might decide that I’m trying to plot his downfall with you once more. I fail to see why I should risk myself for your team’s sake. What could you possibly offer me?” His optics flicked sidelong, dismissing Swindle’s pile of gifts. “I can buy my own junk, you know.”

The bargaining phase. Swindle always said it was the least difficult phase of a trade because wrangling over the cost indicated both parties were equally involved in the deal. Onslaught didn’t think that to be true, not when he had so little to bargain with. “What do you want of us?” he asked, hands still spread. Open body language, Swindle explained because he spoke physical interaction like a professional, offers anything and everything. _’Tell me the price, and we’ll pay it,’_ Onslaught offered, and he could only pray to Primus that Starscream would condescend to name a price they could actually pay.

Now amused, Starscream considered the open offer. With the regal bearing of a prince, he swept a look over the Combaticon, head to foot. Internal cables jerked to tautness, although on the outside Onslaught struggled not to show it. That was the same look Bombshell had when contemplating how to best cut the combiner team off at the knees and make them feel every demeaning moment of it. He shouldn’t be surprised; this was the jet that the Combaticons had taken turns grinding into the rock of that asteroid during their brief exile. Starscream had apparently been content to let their permanent probation punish them for that mistake, but Onslaught had just cast his entire team at the Air Commander’s feet.

His commlink opened with no warning, and if he hadn’t been standing so tense already, Shrapnel voice over the internal array would have made him startle. _*”Onslaught. Report!”*_

Whatever the Seeker wanted as vengeance couldn’t be worse than what Kickback would do to him when Onslaught had to return. The Combaticon leader dropped his gaze to the floor submissively, keeping his hands open and vulnerable: _’Do with us as you will.’_

The words were a thread of sound, barely audible in the office. “Sir, help us.” Even quieter yet. “Please.”

Starscream smiled, wide and gloating. “I could do something.” A delicate shrug, and shame and fear curdled Onslaught’s tanks in equal measure. “I suppose.” _’If it’s worth my while,’_ the lazily triumphant optics over that smile added. 

A small motion from the hand curled under Starscream’s chin, the slightest hint of a crooked finger, summoned him. Onslaught pushed aside the counting numbers and Shrapnel’s audible anger. He walked around the desk and knelt by Starscream’s side without needing to wait for an order. The Air Commander looked down at him, optics sharp and glorious in triumph, and Onslaught’s core felt cold when the Seeker’s free hand reached out to stroke gently down the side of his helm.

Oh, Onslaught already regretted this.


	5. Stage Hands: Swindle

**Motivation (Prompt):** _R.E.M. – “Losing My Religion”_

[* * * * *]

 

He’d been patient. Onslaught had a plan, Onslaught _always_ had a plan, and Swindle had waited for it to go into motion. 

He’d waited. And waited.

It had become clear that Onslaught was waiting for something, too. For what? Megatron to have a fit of mercy? Soundwave to take up English pentameter poetry in his spare time? Motormaster to declare undying love for Optimus Prime?

Actually, that last one had already happened. The Constructicons tackled him on the spot. The rest of the Decepticons pretended nothing had just happened. Nothing. _At all._ Wishful thinking, but they were fans of that when it came to the Stunticons. Hook spent four days searching for the crossed wires, combing through the Motormaster’s head with a pair of toothpicks.

As far as criteria went, Swindle didn’t have faith that the other two would be so easily met. Stunticons did crazy things every day. Soundwave would have to lose it to follow suit. But Megatron…yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. 

Onslaught needed an opportunity. He needed an opening, and his hands were tied in this situation. There were no angles of attack for prisoners; just the bars of their cage, confining them. The only one of the Combaticons with any degree of freedom was Swindle. Not much, because the Insecticons had them all on such short leashes it was hard to stand up straight most days, but he was allowed to work alone sometimes. 

The humans got along with him. He could get contacts and items of sufficient stupidity to carry out the Decepticons’ giant ploy against the Autobots on Earth, and there was even a weird kind of trade going through the spacebridge back to Cybertron. Oddball stuff from Earth was beginning to become collectors’ items back on Cybertron. The Cabbage Patch Kids fad in the ground ranks really had to die a quick death in his opinion, but he still thought Megatron allowed him to sell the things through the space bridge just to get them _out_ of the base. 

But that was the kind of freedom Swindle had. He had to open his books to Bombshell whenever told to, but he _had_ books. The other Combaticons had chains and various bits of debilitating control forced on them. They didn’t resent him -- well, much -- but having them locked down was as effective as a collar around his own neck. They were a combiner team now, not just a combat unit. Crippling them crippled him, too. He had to help them to help himself. Kickback had made him seriously regret trying to skim enough off profit to buy Blast Off a set of Earth dictionaries.

Swindle had waited for orders, for even a hint of a plan that used his limited freedom, but Onslaught remained strangely silent. That was a first. Slowly, but surely, Swindle began to lose faith in Onslaught’s hypothetical plan. He stood back, not the planner and not the strategist, and watched his team leader in fading hope. He waited for his cue, but it wasn’t coming. The gestalt link hummed with constant tension, but there was no direction for the frustrated energy. 

Swindle waited, and he…thought. 

It was up to him. The one with the slack on his chains. 

Onslaught knew tactics. He knew plans. Swindle knew opportunity like a shark knew blood in the water. He skidded through life half a credit ahead of target lock, creating black markets right under the noses of the authorities, and he rarely stopped to plan. Impulse and brilliant flashes of genius guided him where Onslaught’s meticulous plans bogged down for lack of information or time. Swindle didn’t have a strategist’s mind, but he had intelligence. Far too much greed for his own good tempered his smarts, but it was still there, waiting.

The Combaticons combined. Bruticus fell. And Swindle stood among the ruins of his team and saw a direction. 

It wasn’t an opportunity, not yet, but Swindle _ran_ with it.

If the Autobots weren’t so Earth-mad and gullible, he wouldn’t have had to be so flamboyant. But, really, selling his own gestaltmates? It was barely physically _possible_. He got continuous flashes of bewilderment, muzzy pain, and fury through the gestalt link as the humans he’d sold them to used the Combaticons’ bodies like simple machines. It felt horrible, but he sold the other Combaticons anyway. 

It was stupid of him, so stupid, because only Megatron could approve one of the grandiose plans the Decepticons on Earth used to distract the Autobots, and every bargain Swindle struck condemned him that much more. He’d known it, and he’d kept running with it. Onslaught needed this. The other Combaticons might end up dead from this, _he_ might get killed, but someone had to take the risk. He was the only one who had the freedom to even try for it.

If Megatron had valued Bruticus just a tiny bit less, Swindle would have been shot on sight. As outrageous as the lone Combaticon’s spontaneous act had been, however, there was no denying that Prime’s group of morons had fallen for it hook, line, and sinker. Swindle’s character on Earth was that of the overly greedy Decepticon, and selling his team fit in well with that kind of mech. Megatron had decided to use the distraction – and allow Swindle to leave his presence alive. It’d been made very clear that his condition could be temporarily, however, if the Combaticons weren’t reassembled.

Swindle had fled Megatron’s presence and gladly screwed over all his Earth contacts without a shred of remorse. Meh, they were humans, and this wasn’t about business, for once. This was survival and opportunity. 

Onslaught and the others had rebooted fine, but Brawl had caused trouble. Of course he had. Rage kept coming through the tenuous gestalt bond, so the bruiser wasn’t _dead_ , but Swindle cursed up a storm at his mind-absent teammate as he tried to think of a way out of this self-made dead end. The rest of his team had stood before the other Decepticons incomplete, and there had been nothing but wary confusion standing at Swindle’s back. They knew he wasn’t unreasonably greedy, not greedy enough to sell them, but they didn’t dare ask what was really going. Not in front of Megatron. Drawing the Supreme Commander’s wrath at that moment would have been most unwise. 

If Swindle’s impromptu dramatic play hadn’t been working so well at distracting the Autobots from the spacebridge opening that day, the other three Combaticons would have left Megatron’s presence two mechs down instead of just one. Instead, Swindle got a knee-shaking second chance at surviving the day. The bomb installed into his head hadn’t even been all that unexpected, although, frag yes, he’d been shivering with terror when Megatron laid down his ultimatum: restore Bruticus, or die. 

He’d left to find Brawl’s personality component, and in the back of his mind had glittered the faintest flicker of comprehension. 

_Onslaught._

By the time Swindle returned, the glitter had become a hard glow. The Decepticons had obviously filled the other Combaticons in on how badly he’d violated the probationary rules laid on their team while he’d been gone, and Vortex and Blast Off stood far back from him as if sheer gall were catching. The looks they gave him were either admiration for the size of his ball bearings or apprehension for what the Insecticons -- and _Megatron_ , oh by Primus -- were going to do to him. Swindle delivered Brawl’s missing component and dropped his knees before the ruler of the Decepticons, cables cramping with utter panic -- 

\-- and Onslaught grabbed what he’d been given. What Swindle had given him.

“Lord Megatron, let me punish him!” Onslaught strode forward, anger practically vibrating his frame, and Megatron actually paused. Whether at what had been said or at the foolish choice to interrupt him with those words was questionable. Onslaught went on before the Supreme Commander decided. “He **sold** us,” the Combaticon team leader growled, and behind him came an echo from Brawl. Their anger certainly was genuine. Swindle could feel it snapping at the borders of his mind as if Brawl would hit him mentally if he could. “He sold **me**. He sold **my team**. I have the right to discipline him!” 

Dead silence. 

The other Decepticons seemed to have been shocked out of their humorous moods, suddenly watching the free entertainment with intent optics instead of amused. The other Combaticons, even Brawl, went still as statues. Swindle froze, drawing inward and trying to disappear. _’Not wise, Onslaught,’_ he thought. _’Not a good plan.’_ Where was the strategy? This was a blow to their chains, blunt as a brute force, and it would never work. They needed lockpicks, not clubs.

Prisoners did not have rights. That was a basic tenet. It was so obvious it was painful. For Onslaught to demand a _right_ …

Shrill laughter broke the moment, and Starscream turned to Megatron. “Oh, let him, please! This ought to be good!” 

Optics bright with sadistic hilarity savored Swindle’s upturned face as the conmech stared at the Air Commander. Disbelief and alarm mingled there, and Swindle glanced fearfully over his shoulder at his stony-faced team commander. A funny sound, half whimper and half plea, came out of Swindle’s mouth. Starscream only laughed harder. It caught on like an oil refinery fire, roaring through the room until the other Decepticons were clapping each other the backs and wheezing. 

Even Megatron had a smirk on his face. His gaze pressed heavily on the humiliated combiner team, weighing them, judging them one at a time as laughter filled the room. Giggling Vortex, standing beside his larger shuttle teammate. Blast Off, who had his visor trained distantly on the wall behind Megatron as if it held more interest than the current circumstances. Brawl, standing at Onslaught’s shoulder with his fists clenching and unclenching furiously. Swindle, cringing on the floor as if it would swallow him up, trapped between a rock and a hard place: team and Supreme Commander. And finally, Onslaught. Insistent but respectfully not pressing, well aware what he asked for was a monumental change. 

Give a prisoner one right, and it set precedent for granting another. Privileges could be granted, but they had to be earned. 

Megatron considered. He glared at the Combaticons. His Air Commander snickered.

He could afford to be gracious. “Very well, Onslaught. Discipline him.” _Earn it._

Swindle stayed on his knees, feeling curiously numb. Back at the Combaticons’ base, there were chains set into the middle of the helipad. He knew that Onslaught would chain his wrists there for the beating, in full view of the sky. In full view of the spying Autobots and observing Decepticons, and there would be no way to hide any of it. There could be no mercy, and no pulled blows. It wasn’t as simple as a discipline beating. It had to be an example. _Earn it._

Swindle wasn’t just taking one for the team. He was giving them the chance to be a team instead of prisoners. He was paying for the basic rights prisoners didn’t get with his body, and it was going to -- had to -- hurt.

Onslaught had a plan.

 _Earn it._

Swindle huddled on the ground, and he waited.


End file.
